Deeper into the Philanthropy Blogs

My intent yesterday was to report a bit further on some of the entries I caught a glance of while listing Philanthropy Blogs in Monday’s entry. For those who read such blogs regularly what I saw might seem mundane, but as a new reader I was excited and engaged by what I saw.

As I began to plumb a little deeper into the blogs I became convinced that the philanthropy industry blogs were the site of contentious debate. First was this entry on Gift Hub about the writer of Wealth Bondage calling philanthrophy bloggers Uncle Toms beholden to the wealthy.

I got so wrapped up in reading both sides of the story on the entry and learning about the Wealth Bondage blog that I found myself short on time to do an entry. White Courtesy Telephone notes that WB writer Happy Tutor styles himself as a modern day Diogenes challenging all who linger too close to the blog while on the information superhighway.

It wasn’t until I happened to go back and read the comments section on Gift Hub that I saw the author, Philip Cubeta, claim to be Happy Tutor. The satire tags on the entry seem to bear it out as far as that goes. Apparently he is a man at war against himself, casting aspersions at his alter egos. Or may be not.

I am still a little confused and unsure about the truth of the matter. It is intellectual elitism or intellectual rigor rarely seen in these days. Let’s just say I walked in a little late on a joke and caught the last line and punchline. I thought I would just shed a little light on the situation, as dim a bulb as I might be, in case others were exploring those blogs and were also taken in/confused.

Among the more interesting entries I came across during my explorations was this one on White Courtesy Telephone about Power and Powerlessness in Foundations. The entry was revelatory for me because it didn’t touch upon the relationship between grantors and grantees as I assumed it would, but rather on the internal power struggles of foundations.

Over time I came to believe that my colleagues and I acted out of a sense of powerlessness. Think about it. We start our foundation careers with a diminished sense of self-worth. Many of us … were lackluster community organizers or so-so [nonprofit executive directors]. We weren’t up for the challenge of real work 🙂 And for reasons that had little to do with actual talent, we found ourselves in foundation jobs that paid well and were very secure. We were fooling ourselves because as program officers, our jobs were never 100 percent secure. There were always a hundred other people out there ready to replace us.

There was also a great entry on Donor Power Blog- Marketing: No Longer A Department. Blog author Jeff Brooks points out that “It’s everyone’s job to tell the story [of the organization] in a motivating and exciting way.” Not only that, it is incumbent on the marketing department to let them rather than trying to wholly control the transmission of the message themselves.

Where Most Needed blog had two entries that really caught my eye. One on protecting against donors who renege on pledges. The other entry is on dealing with demanding donors.

The final blog entry I wanted to cite today is from Charity Governance where author Jack Siegel makes a case for why the Sarbanes-Oxley Act shouldn’t be applied to non-profits. His basic argument is that non-profits lack the monetary and personnel resources (as well as availability of external auditing firms) to comply. The entry is well written and cross-referenced with Security and Exchange Commission and Government Accounting Office publications. (Be warned, you can’t avoid finding out about the book he wrote.)

All The Ways To Be Underserved

I have to attend one of the final rehearsals for a show going up this weekend, but I wanted to do a quick entry on something I learned today.

Shannon Daut, Director of Programs for WESTAF (Western Arts Federation) spoke to my booking consortium today about various benefits we will accrue by our state rejoining WESTAF. Our consortium was already receiving some financial support under a couple of their programs that didn’t require the state to be a member so we were familiar with a lot of what she said.

One of the things she did tell me that came as a sort of surprise was that for granting purposes an underserved community could be one that wasn’t served by the arts well at all as well as one that was underserved by a particular discipline. As an example of the latter, she mentioned that Denver where WESTAF is headquartered was underserved by dance.

What is necessary for the granting process is to make the case for why a community is underserved citing data be it historical trends or census data. One of the other criteria for the grants is that the arts organization be engaged with what the community wants. You can’t just seek financial support to bring Jethro Tull in because they never tour your part of the country unless there are a lot of people who want to see the band.

According to Shannon, if you have plans to present an group of an underserved discipline in proper proportion to the demand of your community, you have a fair chance of receiving support even if your community is renowned as a hot bed for other disciplines.

Trends in Arts Spending

Just some FYI materials to provide a little guidance to those who are looking for ways to position their events.

The NEA just came out with a report on consumer spending on the arts in 2005. It seems when adjusted for inflation, spending on performing arts events was flat with 2004 spending. 2004 only saw 0.9% growth so it isn’t terribly surprising that it is flat. What is sort of depressing is that the economy grew in both 2004 and 2005 but arts spending didn’t. By 3.9% and 3.2%, respectively, according to the report.

As bad as that may seem, adjusted spending attending movies and sports events both dropped. Movies dropped for a third year by 4.7% and spectator sporting events by 1.6%, down from 1.6% growth in 2004.

So where is all the money going? As you might imagine, to at home entertainment equipment which saw 12.7% growth. But there was also comparable growth (11.7%) in non-durable toys and sports supplies.

It seems the biggest growth moves in different directions. People are staying at home and enjoying audio and video equipment and/or getting out and getting active. (Or at least they are buying a lot of expensive equipment with that intent before being seduced by their home entertainment centers!)

This makes it a little tough to decide how to position events. It is fairly easy to portray watching television at home as passive and inactive and show attendance at a show or gallery as exciting and engaging (if your current patrons find it so). The problem is, sports and outdoor activities are even more active than event attendance.

Perhaps portraying arts attendance as a continuation of an active lifestyle? Coming home from running/biking/climbing, etc., you are too amped up to sit passively watching two dimensional images. Only the passion exuding from live performers makes your nerve endings tingle and makes you feel alive!

Artsmanager.org

I was a little nervous that there might be some competition for my status as the only (to my knowledge) theatre manager who actively blogs. I was over looking at Artsmanager.org, a service of the Kennedy Center which offers itself as a resource for arts managers.

What made me nervous was the “Lessons from the Field” section where Kennedy Center president Michael Kaiser talks about the organizations he worked for or that his consultant business helped out. The case studies he presents are interesting reads.

Unfortunately, (because I would actually be happier if more managers blogged) it doesn’t appear like much on the website has been updated since March. It looks like they started out strongly enough in January adding some good content but then had their attention diverted to other things.

I have found more complete information and resource links elsewhere, but I will say I like their Q&A section where people can submit questions to be answered. The questions posed are unlike those answered pretty much anywhere else I have come across. For example-“What payroll taxes apply to board members who are paid for their services?” “Is it wise to write a letter to the editor in response to bad press?” and “What kind of listserv should I use?”

I think if they made the Q&A section the core purpose of the site it would be a great resource for arts organizations on its own. Not only would they be addressing questions whose answers aren’t easily found in one place, in the course of researching answers, they can identify more resources for that section of the site.

So, operating under the assumption that the Q&A section hasn’t been updated due to lack of questions, (and hoping that it isn’t lack of personnel), I encourage people to pose some questions. (bottom of page)